{"id":8789,"date":"2011-06-02T02:51:12","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T07:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=8789"},"modified":"2011-06-03T04:45:06","modified_gmt":"2011-06-03T09:45:06","slug":"jury-deliberates-whether-darst-guilty-of-injuring-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2011\/06\/02\/jury-deliberates-whether-darst-guilty-of-injuring-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury begins deliberations in Darst trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

For the second time this year, a jury is deliberating to decide whether David Darst is guilty of causing injuries to his then-9-week-old son, Logan.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Assistant Van Wert County Prosecutor Eva Yarger makes a point during her closing arguments, while Judge Sumner E. Walters listens in the background. (photos by Dave Mosier for the Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Judge Sumner E. Walters, who is hearing the case this time on assignment from the Ohio Supreme Court, gave the eight-man, four-woman jury its final instructions at approximately 3 p.m. Wednesday after both the prosecution and defense rested their cases and summed things up during closing arguments.<\/p>\n

A six-man, six-woman jury that heard the case in early March deadlocked after deliberating for several hours. Van Wert County Common Pleas Judge Charles D. Steele then declared a mistrial after jurors said they were unable to come to a unanimous decision in the case. That jury split 7-5 in favor of acquittal after hearing a number of witnesses on both sides who testified about injuries allegedly caused by Darst to his 2-month-old son.<\/p>\n

Darst is charged with child endangering for allegedly causing two subdural hematomas (bruising of the brain related to bleeding under the skin caused by head trauma), as well as bruising to the young child\u2019s chest and back.<\/p>\n

Those who testified include Van Wert Detective Sergeant Jeff Blackmore, who investigated the allegations; family members that included Darst\u2019s mother-in-law; Dr. Laurence Kleiner and Dr. Lori Vavul-Roediger, both physicians at Children\u2019s Hospital in Dayton, where the young boy was taken several days after the injuries were alleged to have occurred on April 22, 2010, when Darst was babysitting for his son.<\/p>\n

Also testifying at both trials was Darst himself and his wife, Latricia Darst, who testified for the defense.<\/p>\n

Assistant County Prosecutor Eva Yarger used a calendar to show the timeline of events surrounding the young boy\u2019s injuries during her closing arguments in the case on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Yarger pointed to what she said were discrepancies in Darst\u2019s accounts of what happened to his young son, Logan. Darst has repeatedly said any injuries he may have inflicted on Logan were done when the baby slipped while he was holding him and he trapped the boy between his body and an armchair in which he was sitting.<\/p>\n

Attorney Scott Gordon, who heads the defense team, tried to throw doubt in jurors\u2019 mind as to whether someone else might have caused the injuries to Logan Darst, since the boy was not taken to the hospital until two days after the alleged incident occurred. Gordon has said that others who had watched the boy in the meantime could have caused the injuries to the infant.<\/p>\n

After closing arguments, the jurors deliberated for approximately two hours Wednesday afternoon before Judge Walters sent them home for the evening. Deliberations will begin again today at 8:30 a.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor For the second time this year, a jury is deliberating to decide whether David Darst is guilty of causing injuries to his then-9-week-old son, Logan. Judge Sumner E. Walters, who is hearing the case this time on assignment from the Ohio Supreme Court, gave the eight-man, four-woman jury its final instructions at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 11:47:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}